


Found In Translation

by Bobcatmoran



Category: The Tripods - John Christopher
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 13:34:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5458304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bobcatmoran/pseuds/Bobcatmoran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thousands of miles from home, Will and Fritz find a small pocket of potential resistance against the Tripods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Found In Translation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cyphomandra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyphomandra/gifts).



> This is set during Will and Fritz's journey during _The Pool of Fire_ to form resistance groups across the world.

"Well," Fritz said to me, discouraged, "That was unproductive." He sat down next to me, by our tethered donkeys and my horse, Crest.

"I don't know," I said. "A couple of those boys seemed interested."

"Interested in the trinkets we carried. Interested in a new pocketknife or one of those whistles from Hellas. But interested in joining us? No. I didn't see even a seed of rebellion, a whisp of questioning in any of them."

"Who's to say, though?" I said. "There may be something behind the language barrier for all we know."

"But we can't know, and that's the problem. I hardly even recognize enough to catch the general gist of a conversation, and I speak the language here worse than a small child."

"Better than me," I said. "I went to the market and resorted to pointing and flailing about, gesturing like an actor in a pantomime."

"Will, I think it may be time for us to turn around. This land, with its cult of Tripods — it seems to me that the Masters are in many ways more powerful here than they were near their City, despite the fact that people here practically never see them."

I nodded. "They are deeply woven into the fabric of people's lives here, giving them a constant presence. I doubt that even the Capped back home gave thought to the Tripods unless they were mentioned or one was in sight, but here…" as if to emphasize my point, we heard the priest calling the faithful to sunset worship.

"They pray to them three times a day," Fritz said. "Come, we had best head towards the temple to allay suspicion."

\---

The next morning, we packed up the donkeys and put the saddlebags back on Crest. He regarded the load with tolerable ease, but was less at peace with the gaggle of boys that had gathered around. They were struck by the novelty of a horse, and struck further still by the novelty that someone as low on the social ladder as a couple of traders would be using one, and as a beast of burden at that.

Fritz suddenly noticed one of the boys rummaging through a pack on the rear donkey, and turned on him, yelling oaths in German. The other boys whooped and ran off, while Fritz gave the offender a cuff on the ear.

I turned back to Crest, to find a girl cautiously holding something to my horse. I bristled. What was she doing? "Hey!" I said. She startled and dropped what was in her hand. I picked it up from the ground. She had been feeding him carrot, nothing more.

The girl said something in an apologetic tone, holding her hands out.

"It's all right," I said, smiling and trying to adopt the same tone. I did my best to dust the carrot off on my trousers and held it out to her. She looked suspicious, and I gestured to the carrot, then back and forth between her and the horse. Still frowning, she took the carrot from me and held it back out to Crest, who nibbled at it, untroubled by the glare the girl was giving me.

"Is not all right," she said, the accent heavy, but the words unmistakably English. "You speak loud noise at me, when I feed the horse. Good horse," she said, directing this last to Crest.

"You…you speak English?" I asked, flabbergasted. Aside from Fritz on rare occasions, I hadn't heard another human speak my native tongue in months.

"English? Yes, I speak. I find the book, it shows words, how to speak … English?" She spoke the name of the language carefully, as though the word was unfamiliar to her, though the language was not. "Book is very very old, from the people of long ago."

"The ancients," I said.

"Ancients, yes. They make the great city, and they make the books. I am thinking, English is language of … of Ancients, that they make the book to talk to people now, people of —" and here she used a word I didn't recognize, that sounded like Each-loo. "But you are not Ancients. You are here, now, and you speak English. So I am now thinking that you are from very far away, because I do not hear anyone else speak English, not even the other traders, and you are very bad at my language."

I laughed. "Yes, I am very bad at your language. You are very good at mine, though, especially if you haven't heard anyone speak it before." I dodged her questioning about how far away we were from, however. The scarf she wore over her head reminded me of the turban Eloise had worn in the wake of her Capping, and although she looked young, it could be, I thought, that with all the different customs they had in this land, they may Cap them younger as well.

What she said next, however, changed my mind. "Are you from the Each-loo land then? Do you know what it is like? Because they take me there next year, for the ceremony, and I do not know if I want to go."

"The ceremony?" I asked, already suspecting what it might be.

"Yes, where you become an adult. They do not say what happens there, but everyone must go. They take you to the Each-loo land, and you learn the secrets of the adults, and they give you—" here she made a gesture around her head with her hands, forming the shape of a Cap. "My friend, Burcu, she go to the ceremony, she come back. Before, she say she do not want to marry man her parents choose. She say he is old, he is ugly. But she come back, she say she do what parents want. She say I am silly for saying she do not want to marry him. She say I am wrong in this. I am not wrong! But she is different now. Maybe it is because I am a girl and she is a woman, but I do not think this is so."

I looked over at Fritz, who had come back after chasing off the boys. After all our time working together, first in the Masters' City, and then on our long journey east, we could practically communicate without talking on such matters. "We are not from the Each-loo land, not exactly," he said. "But we can tell you more about them, if you like."

I smiled. One more potential recruit. Perhaps we would keep on traveling. This land was not so hopeless after all.


End file.
